PSU graduate student Sugan Barkman gathers the harvest for the PSU Food Pantry in the Learning Gardens Lab.
For nearly 20 years, Portland State University’s Learning Gardens Lab has trained graduate students in the Leadership for Sustainability Education (LSE) program, and undergraduate students in service learning. Growing sustainable crops earmarked for the PSU Food Pantry and community organizations, students learn about the importance of service to the community, a formal requirement of all PSU students.
“The Learning Gardens Laboratory (LGL) has been a critical component of recreating sustainable food systems and addressing local food justice. Our partnership with the PSU Food Pantry has felt especially important as more of our students face food insecurity than ever before, and the impacts of climate change will increasingly disrupt our sociocultural systems–food systems in particular,” says Dr. Sybil Kelley, who co-leads the LSE program at PSU’s College of Education with her colleague, Dr. Heather Burns.
The Learning Gardens Lab delivers much needed fresh produce to the PSU Food Pantry, which provides free groceries once per week, open to all PSU students. Sugan Barkman, a graduate student in the LSE program, is instrumental in coordinating and strengthening the partnership throughout the growing season and into the winter months, preparing for next spring. “Some of the produce we donate includes tomatoes, beets, carrots, chard, kale, culinary herbs, and squash,” Barkman says, adding, “We’re looking to grow more culturally responsive food for the pantry next season.”
“This partnership is an example of the synergy that can emerge from reciprocal relationships between a diverse array of people, and of course, the land. PSU Capstone students in Learning Gardens & Food Justice alongside LGL’s graduate students staff grow, harvest, and distribute high-quality, organically grown fresh produce for the PSU Food Pantry,” Dr. Kelley notes.
“After a pilot program in the summer of 2021, we are now hosting Capstones through the entire growing season–spring, summer, and fall terms. Additionally, our LGL team continues to share the bounty of this place during breaks between academic terms,” says Dr. Kelley. “This and other partnership activities at the Learning Gardens Lab are a model for how educational and social systems — traditionally rooted in white supremacy and colonialism– can shift to support a regenerative, resilient future,” she adds.
The Learning Garden supports the PSU community year-round with fresh produce, but everyone can help with hunger by donating non-perishable food items. Special attention is called for during Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week at PSU, Nov. 13 to 18, 2022. Donations of non-perishable food items will be collected at the College of Education’s Vanport building on campus. This one-week food drive is being held by the Student Community Engagement Center and ASPSU (student government) in partnership with the Resource Center for Students with Children, and will support PSU students with children directly.
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